by Lindsey Kelk
‘She did.’
Joderick took a big bite of the biscuit. Eurgh. Raisins. He was an excellent baker and this was definitely not an excellent biscuit.
‘But what’s to stop her coming back here?’ Margery asked, suddenly looking very frightened. She grabbed both of her daughters by the collars of their pink, frilly dresses and held them so tightly that Aggy’s eyes began to bulge out of their sockets. ‘What if she returns to the cottage to cast spells on my beautiful daughters?’
Beautiful was pushing it a bit, Joderick thought, eyeing the two girls with their perfectly curled hair and high, high heels. Mostly, they just looked uncomfortable.
‘I think we should come back to the palace with you,’ Margery said. ‘It’s the only way to keep my daughters safe.’
‘We’re going to live at the palace?’ Elly gasped with bright, excited eyes.
‘Only until we’re certain that Cinders is never, ever, ever coming back,’ her mother replied, completely ignoring her grief-stricken husband.
‘I’m sure Prince Joderick will keep us safe,’ Aggy said, gazing at the prince with big eyes. ‘He’s so strong and brave.’
Said prince gulped hard and took a big sip of water.
‘That sounds lovely,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure there’s room.’
‘There’s plenty of room – it’s a palace,’ Margery replied dismissively. ‘Elly, Aggy, go and pack a bag. We must leave tonight. Before that witch comes back home.’
‘Cinders couldn’t possibly be a witch,’ repeated her husband in rather a weak voice. ‘She’s the double of her mother and her mother was no witch, believe me. Quite the opposite, in fact. I must go and find her.’
Joderick turned his attention to the older man, kneeling down beside his chair. ‘Excuse me for saying so, sir, but I’m not sure it’s a terribly good idea for you to go off into the Dark Forest. It’s awfully dangerous.’
‘There’s a very good chance she’s already been eaten,’ added Margery. ‘The prince is right. You must come to the palace with us where you’ll be safe.’
‘Absolutely not,’ her father said, using all his strength to stand upright. ‘I will not leave my little girl alone in that forest. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find her and bring her home safely. Then we’ll explain everything to the king.’
Margery lifted an eyebrow. ‘Explain what exactly?’ she asked.
‘It’s my own fault,’ her father whispered to Joderick. ‘I never should have kept it a secret.’
Joderick looked at the frail man. He seemed to have aged fifty years since the first time they’d met – there was no way he could ride off into the Dark Forest.
‘I think we should all go back to the palace,’ Joderick suggested.
Margery, Elly and Aggy cheered.
‘And then I will go into the Dark Forest to find Cinders,’ he added bravely. ‘I’m the prince. I’ll be safer.’
Margery, Elly and Aggy gasped.
‘Are you … sure?’ said Cinders’s father.
‘Yes,’ said Joderick.
‘Very well. I would like to go myself, but … my strength is not what it was. You will make a great king one day,’ said Cinders’s dad.
‘Not if he gets eaten by a munklepoop, he won’t,’ Margery pointed out.
Joderick took another bite of his hard, dry biscuit. If a munklepoop comes after me, I can just throw this at its head and knock it out cold, he thought. But he didn’t repeat this out loud – he’d been raised to be polite, even when people didn’t deserve it.
‘We’ll find Cinders,’ he said to her father. ‘I promise.’
The next morning, Cinders woke up to sunlight streaming in through the window, the sound of Sparks snoring gently beside her and three not-at-all-happy-looking bears standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’ the largest bear roared.
‘Not this again,’ said a medium-sized bear, who was wearing a very fetching floral sundress. ‘You can see very well who’s been sleeping in your bed. It’s a human boy. He’s still there.’
‘Good golly gosh!’ Cinders cried, suddenly wide awake. ‘We’re so sorry. We were riding through the woods, and it was late and—’
But the largest bear didn’t want to hear it. He tore the duvet from Hansel’s bed with a huge paw. ‘This is my house, this is my bed and I shall EAT YOU UP!’
‘Five more minutes, Cinders,’ Hansel muttered, rolling over and planting his face in the pillow.
‘No, I think it’s time to get up now,’ she said as she grabbed his hat from the bedside table.
‘I cannot believe this is happening again,’ the mummy bear muttered. ‘Didn’t I tell you to check the lock before we left? Do I have to do everything around here?’
‘I did check the lock,’ the other bear said, planting his hands on his hips indignantly. ‘They clearly broke in.’
The littlest bear, who was still just a baby, ambled over to his bed where Sparks was hiding under the covers and began to give the dog a good, firm pat. A little bit too firm for Sparks’s liking.
‘Um … excuse me.’ Cinders held up her hand to politely get the bears’ attention. ‘Not to cause an argument, but the door was definitely unlocked.’
‘I knew it,’ sighed the mummy bear. ‘Look, Frank, just admit you didn’t lock the door.’
‘Karen, do not look at me like that. I definitely did,’ the larger bear argued, even though he didn’t sound as if he was quite so sure. ‘Whatever – they still need to learn a lesson so I’m STILL GOING TO EAT THEM!’
‘Daddy, no!’ The baby bear grabbed hold of Sparks and squeezed him tightly against his chest. ‘Please don’t eat the doggy.’
Sparks let out a strangled woof in support of the baby bear’s request.
‘Please don’t eat us,’ Cinders said. ‘We’re good people … Well, I’m good and Hansel is all right most of the time and—’
‘I’m going to interrupt you there, young lady,’ the mummy bear said, wagging a finger at Cinders. ‘This is not a hotel. What kind of person lets themselves into someone else’s home in the middle of the night and sleeps in their bed?’
‘And eats their porridge and breaks their chairs?’ added the daddy bear.
‘Um. We didn’t eat any porridge,’ Cinders replied, a little puzzled.
‘I did use quite a lot of toilet paper, but I definitely didn’t break any chairs,’ Hansel said.
The mummy bear shook her head. She was clearly very annoyed. ‘My sister told me not to build a holiday home in the Dark Forest, but I wouldn’t listen, would I? It’ll be peaceful, I said. No one bothering you, I said. But here you are, full of excuses, just as bad as that Goldilocks. I know she said she only came in to charge her phone, but she certainly found time to do a lot of damage. And who paid for the new chair? Muggins here, that’s who.’
‘I think there’s a very easy way to teach everyone a lesson here,’ the daddy bear said. ‘I’m going to EAT THEM!’
The mummy bear rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. ‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Frank? The gardener charges you too much for mowing the lawn – eat him. The dry cleaner shrinks your favourite trousers – eat him. If you had your way, you’d have eaten everyone in the kingdom by now.’
‘Maybe we should leave,’ Cinders suggested.
‘No one is going anywhere until I’ve had my breakfast!’ The daddy bear roared so loudly that Hansel’s hat flew right off his head.
‘Cinders, do something!’ Hansel squealed as the daddy bear came closer.
‘I wish I knew how to make everyone happy!’ she yelled at the top of her voice.
And, with that, Cinders’s fingers began to tingle and the golden sparks started shooting out of her hands. And then she began to feel funny all over, as if the sparks were coming from every part of her. The mummy bear and the daddy bear took a step back, but Hansel looked on with wide eyes. This was a lot more dramatic than what had happ
ened in the forest the night before! Cinders looked as though she was made entirely of fireworks.
When the magic finished, Cinders shook herself and blinked at the bears. They were staring at her in disbelief. She knew she’d done something impressive if she had stunned talking bears into silence. The baby bear let go of Sparks and ran over to his parents, hiding behind his mum’s leg.
‘I say,’ Sparks said, sniffing hungrily. ‘Can anyone else smell sausages?’
‘Cinders, I think your magic is getting stronger. This has to be your most successful wish yet,’ declared Sparks as the three bears and the three friends sat down at the kitchen table, ready to tuck into the enormous feast that had magically appeared when she made her wish.
It turned out that the one thing that made the daddy bear happy was a great big cooked breakfast, and the one thing that made the mummy bear happy was three freshly made beds and a new lock on the front door, and the one thing that made the baby bear happy was a tiny red puppy that Cinders noticed looked an awful lot like Sparks.
His first wish had been for a new phone, but that had only led to a very long conversation with his mum about how much screen time he was allowed and so they had decided on a dog instead, and Cinders had made the wish again.
Of course the thing that made Cinders, Hansel and Sparks happy was not being eaten by the daddy bear, and so it seemed that she really had done a splendid job.
The table was overflowing with food: sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, toast, fruit, yoghurts, croissants and cakes and muffins and other goodies. Even after everyone had eaten their fill, there was still more food left over than Cinders had ever seen in her whole life.
‘You must take some with you,’ said the mummy bear, all smiles now she’d eaten. ‘I’ll pack you a lunch.’
‘And of course you’re very welcome to stay, if you’d like,’ the daddy bear said as he licked his paws clean. ‘Perhaps not in our beds, but we’ve got a very nice sofa bed in the living room.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Cinders said, holding her hand out in front of Hansel’s face before he could accept the invitation, ‘but we really must be getting on. My fairy godmother told me the journey to Fairyland might be tricky, and we really should set off as early as we can.’
‘She wasn’t wrong about that,’ the daddy bear said. ‘This forest is perfect if you’re a great big grizzly bear looking for a quiet weekend away, but it’s not the kind of place you want to hang about in if you’re a delicious-looking little girl.’
Cinders gulped.
‘Ignore Frank,’ said Mummy Bear. ‘He’s always going on about eating people, but he can’t even stomach sushi, let alone uncooked humans. The quickest way to get to Fairyland is to ride due north from the cottage until you reach the Alabaster Tower. That’s the halfway point between the kingdom and Fairyland.’
‘But, whatever you do, do not go into the Alabaster Tower,’ warned Daddy Bear.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Sparks, casually snaffling another sausage from the table.
‘No one who goes in has ever come back out again,’ Mummy Bear replied. ‘In fact, I can’t remember the last time anyone went off as far as the tower and returned home.’
Cinders looked down at her no-longer-sparkly fingers. It didn’t matter. She’d always known the quest would be dangerous, and it wasn’t as though she could go home anyway. The king would lock her up in the dungeons for the rest of her life.
‘We’ll be okay,’ she said, trying to convince everyone at the table, including herself. ‘And we really ought to be setting off before it gets any later. Thank you so much for having us. Come on, Hansel. Ready, Sparks?’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Hansel as he followed her out into the garden. ‘What if your fairy godmother isn’t telling you the truth?’
Cinders gave him a stern look. ‘Brian wouldn’t lie,’ she replied, grinning at Mouse as he trotted round in happy circles, crumbs of cheese sticking to his horse-mouse whiskers. ‘She’s my fairy godmother.’
‘But what if she isn’t,’ Hansel said as Sparks came bounding down the path, carrying a knapsack absolutely bursting with food, waving goodbye to the three bears. ‘What if the king is right and the fairies are evil and she’s trying to trick you for some reason?’
‘Hansel,’ Cinders said very slowly. ‘Fairies aren’t evil just because the king says they are. After all, my mum was a fairy and she was good.’
Hansel scratched his head before pulling his hat down over his ears. He’d been brought up to believe all magic was bad, but here was wish-granting Cinders, and her talking dog, and they were his friends. Maybe she was right.
‘If you don’t want to come to Fairyland, me and Sparks and Mouse will go on without you,’ Cinders said, tossing her messy hair over her shoulder. What she wouldn’t have given for a scrunchie. ‘You can find your way back home on your own.’ Hmm. Hansel really didn’t want to trek back through the Dark Forest alone and he definitely didn’t want to go home and explain to his mum why he’d been pinching gingerbread tiles off the neighbour’s roof again. But he also didn’t want to get lost in the forest. Ooh, gingerbread! Now there was an idea …
‘What if we left a trail of breadcrumbs behind us?’ Hansel suggested.
Cinders crossed her arms and looked at Hansel like he was mad. ‘Breadcrumbs?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, grabbing one of the slightly stale gingerbread tiles from his bag. ‘To mark the trail. In case we need to … turn round.’
Truthfully, Cinders thought it was a stupid idea. Breadcrumbs would be blown away or trampled into the dirt or gobbled up by a gadzoozle, but she was in a rush to get on with her quest and, if leaving a trail of breadcrumbs made Hansel happy, then that’s what they would do.
‘Breadcrumbs it is,’ she said with a huff, clambering on to Mouse’s back. ‘Now let’s get going.’
‘You’ll see,’ Hansel whispered to Sparks. ‘Just wait until we need to find our way back here and have to follow my trail. Then she’ll eat her words.’
Sparks smiled and bounded on ahead as Hansel climbed up behind Cinders. He was pretty sure the birds in the forest would be eating the breadcrumbs before Cinders ate her words, but he didn’t say anything. Why ruin Hansel’s good mood?
Even though his entire world had been turned upside down since the ball, there was one thing Prince Joderick knew for certain. He should never have brought Cinders’s stepmother and her stepsisters to the palace. Ever since they’d arrived, they had not left him alone. Margery insisted they all ride together in their coach to ‘let the poor prince rest’ and, once they arrived, she convinced the king to allow her daughters to sit on either side of the prince at dinner ‘for protection’. He couldn’t even sneak off to the loo without one of them waiting for him when he came out. He didn’t know how Cinders had survived living with them for so long. If he had to stay under the same roof as them for another second, he had a feeling he might start shooting sparks out of his fingertips as well.
‘Oh, there you are!’
Cripes, they’d found him again!
‘Um … good morning, um … which one are you again?’ Joderick asked, flattening himself against the stone wall of the hallway.
‘Oh, you are funny.’ The girl laughed as she twirled her hair round her finger. ‘I’m Agnes. My sister, Elly, has dull, dishwater-brown hair. Mine is a more glossy, chocolatey mahogany colour.’
The palace had, at last count, 347 rooms and it still was not big enough for Joderick and the sisters.
‘Right, noted,’ he replied with a tight smile. ‘Bathroom’s all yours.’
‘I was actually looking for you,’ Agnes said, looking down at her toes. ‘I thought perhaps you might like to accompany me on a walk round the gardens.’
Joderick could not think of anything he would like less.
‘That sounds like a real treat,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately I’ve got some things to attend to.’
‘Oh?’ Agnes looked curious. ‘What
kind of things?’
‘Very boring prince things,’ he replied. ‘That I have to do alone.’
‘Wow!’ Agnes looked impressed. That or she had a bad tummy ache, he couldn’t be sure. ‘Shall I wait for you and we can go for a walk later?’
‘No!’ shouted Joderick before recovering his princely manners. ‘I mean, it might take me a while and I wouldn’t want to keep you waiting. Why don’t you go for a walk with your mother? Or your sister? Or, better yet, both of them? A very, very long walk.’
‘Joderick, you’re so funny,’ she tittered, covering her mouth with her hand even though he hadn’t made a joke at all. ‘Perhaps I’ll go and see what the queen is doing. Last night she told me she’d always wanted a daughter like me.’
Agnes gave him a wink and swept away down the hallway.
‘Cripes almighty,’ he muttered, pulling at his collar. It felt very tight all of a sudden. When he was sure she was gone, Joderick opened the door to his father’s private chambers and let himself in.
Even though he had lived in the palace all his life, the prince had never, ever been inside the king’s private chambers on his own. But this was an emergency – he had to help Cinders and her father. No matter what he had heard about fairies and witches, he simply couldn’t believe his new friend was up to no good. How could someone so kind and funny and brave and clever be bad? Whatever the case, he had promised her father he would go into the Dark Forest and bring her back, and Joderick believed that promises were made to be kept.
But how to find Cinders when she was already far ahead of him in the Dark Forest? Thankfully, Jodders had a plan. When he was very little, his father had taken him into his chambers and shown him a map of what lay beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, but he hadn’t seen it in more than ten years.
‘Now, if I was a map to Fairyland,’ Joderick muttered to himself, looking round the forbidden room, ‘where would I be?’